September 13, 2017 - MPR’s Dan Kraker reflects on Minnesota’s worst mining disaster and the efforts to memorialize those lost in the tragedy with a park.
December 20, 2016 - MPR News with Tom Weber presents a program on The Dakota Access oil pipeline, which winds hundreds of miles from the oil fields of North Dakota to a pipeline hub in southern Illinois. In 2016, it was almost entirely built — except for a section under Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir just south of Bismarck, N.D. Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a coalition of other groups camped out near the site of the river crossing in an effort to stop pipeline construction.
October 13, 2016 - Bob Dylan's literary roots may be as tangled as the Nobel Prize winner's famously enigmatic lyrics, but at some point they invariably end up in the Hibbing High School classroom of B.J. Rolfzen. MPR’s Dan Kraker profiles the teacher and his future music icon student.
September 9, 2016 - MPR’s Dan Kraker investigates the warming waters of Lake Superior. In late August 2016, the average surface water temperature for the entire lake hit 68 and a half degrees (the second highest ever recorded). In Lake Superior, researchers at the University of Minnesota Duluth have found that summer surface water temperatures have increased by 5 degrees over the past 30 years.
August 5, 2016 - MPR’s Dan Kraker profiles Duluth's five lift bridge operators and their very unique work window view. The Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge span goes up and down about 4,500 times every year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the Great Lakes shipping season that runs from March to January.
July 21, 2016 - MPR’s Dan Kraker reports on the impact of powerful overnight storms in Duluth area. Wind gusts toppled trees on top of homes and cars, downed power lines, and blocked streets.
June 21, 2016 - All Things Considered’s Tom Crann talks with MPR Duluth reporter Dan Kraker about Great Lakes Compact approval of plan that allows the city of Waukesha, Wisconsin to pump 8.2 million gallons of water a day from Lake Michigan.
May 19, 2016 - As part of MPR's “Trouble in the Water” series, MPR’s Dan Kraker reports on the history of pollution in the St. Louis river in nortern Minnesota, and efforts now to clean it up.
February 15, 2016 - MPR’s Dan Kraker reports from Duluth's Portman Park, where outdoor hockey is alive and well. The city is home to one of North America's last all-outdoor youth hockey leagues.
December 2, 2015 - MPR’s Dan Kraker reports on the decline of lake herring, called cisco in Lake Superior. The fish typically aggregate in thick schools in the late fall when they swim to shore to spawn. But overfishing in parts of Superior regulated by Wisconsin, and a decline in fish survival, have caused cisco numbers on the Minnesota side of the lake to plummet, putting the lake's small but iconic commercial fishery in jeopardy.